Hello Darling, Welcome Home
by Blackbirdox
Summary: Maybe the best things in life are waiting just on the other side of death.


**Disclaimer:** I own nothing related to Harry Potter.

**A/N:** Long story short, because I could talk about this forever, I've been shipping Remus/Sirius since Prisoner of Azkaban was released. I shipped them before I really understood what shipping was. I love them. They are my OTP, or what have you. That being said, I've been working on numerous fics for them over the years but I've actually never finished one. This particular piece was started on a whim to try to get me in the mood to write and nine pages later, I wound up with this. Now, I took full creative liberty here with the setting, so please don't believe that anything I've written here actually happens. I don't know any more than you do.

Hope you all enjoy!

* * *

><p>When you open your eyes, you're on a beach. It's one you think you might have visited a lifetime ago, maybe down in Kent or somewhere in Devon, but the memory is too blurred to identify.<p>

It's empty, and the sun is setting in the background, and the waves are crashing around your ankles, the sand cold and wet beneath your bare feet. You inhale, and the air smells salty, and there's a faint undertone of cologne that wafts across on the breeze. You'd recognize that cologne anywhere, but when you turn, the face you're expecting to see isn't there. You're still alone, and the beach is still empty, stretching out as far as you can see- perhaps even farther than that.

The scent doesn't escape you, and so you walk to find the source, and though you're not sure if you're going forward or backwards, something inside is telling you that moving on is what you're meant to do.

/

The beach seems like an ordinary beach, but you learn very quickly that there's more to it than meets the eye. The path of the sand can lead you to a set of rickety wooden stairs, which will you lead you to a walkway, which will lead you somewhere entirely different- different places, different periods, a different life.

Leery of their intention and purpose- because exactly what would a set of stairs be doing in the middle of an empty beach? -you pass right by the first set, but curiosity ultimately gets the better of you.

It's that scent (still faint, yet growing stronger) that peeks your interest, and it's that tug inside of you that brings you to the top of the second staircase, almost as if you had no choice in the matter at all.

You glance over the banister and the beach is still beneath you, the horizon still behind you, but stretched out in front of you is a path of some sort, almost like a hallway between two invisible rooms.

There appears to be nothing beyond the pathway, as the surrounding space is simply black- and how strange it is to see such nothingness in a place of substance!- but you cautiously expand your foot anyway, half expecting that whatever this illusion that lies before you is, is going to collapse.

Strangely, the substance beneath your feet is just as stable and as sound as the steps of the staircase or the sand down on the beach.

And so you walk, though for how long, you can't be sure. Seconds, minutes, hours, days, a month, a year, twenty years- time seems to no longer apply, so you suppose it really doesn't matter. Everything is black, and you cannot see what lies an inch before your face, but there's that tug, and there's that scent, and so you follow them, trust them, let them guide you back- forward?- into a memory so far into your past that even you have mostly forgotten it.

Here you're just a boy, though you're looking at the world through your own eyes.

Your mother, who is standing above you and fussing about, no longer seems like the most beautiful woman in the world, because you've had experiences with ones far prettier, and your father, the pillar of strength in the corner of the room, no longer seems like the brave, fearless man you always assumed he was, because now you can see flickers of concern and fright reflected in his eyes.

You're in pain, and it is just as sharp and unbearable as you remember it to be. Experience has had no affect on that.

There's a gash on your shoulder, and it stings when you raise your hand to touch the bandage, and you shudder because you now know what lies beneath.

You're not sure where you are or why you're there but there's an ache deep inside of you that yearns to make a change- to simply rewind the proverbial clock that is Father Time and prevent this. Prevent the gash, the bite, the change. Prevent everything.

Was that what lie beyond that first staircase? You cannot be certain, for if it did, surely the tug in your chest would have wanted you to be there, would have wanted you to correct what you had done as a child- that reckless decision to step out after dark.

You close your eyes and you concentrate and you try to will away the throbbing ache in your shoulder, but it does nothing to dull it or to take it away. Perhaps the goal of this isn't to change things, you think- but then why else you are here?

For now all that you can be certain of is when you reopen your eyes, you're back on the beach.

/

The third staircase is somewhere behind you, and you're staring out at the vast expanse of the ocean while the foam of the waves laps at your toes. You wonder what lies out there, if the water is just as limitless as the Earth appears to be.

On either side of you there is nothing but sand, and the world is warm though the sun has vanished. The sky is as empty as the beach with no clouds to be seen, and there are no rocks or masses out to sea as far as you can tell. You wonder if there's something out there you're missing- life, boats, fluttering sails- and you call a name across the water, though you're certain your voice will not be heard.

It falls from your lips before you can stop it, and the syllables still roll off your tongue in the most effortless manner, though you can't remember the last time you spoke the name. It seems strange to hear it now, echoing around you in the wasteland, and it causes that tug in the center of your chest that makes you turn around and there it is- the familiar musk of cologne.

You step forward and it's stronger there so you step again, and you let it lead you along like your own personal kind of North Star. The irony of that almost makes you smile, because you've always been one to follow the stars, and it seems like here- there, wherever you are- you are no different.

You follow and you follow, and then the sidewalk ends.

/

Now you're in an office, seated between your parents, and across from an aging man who smiles as he looks at you over the top of his half-moon glasses.

His beard is long and white, and he has some sort of charm tied around it, and you remember that you thought that was funny so many years ago. You had wanted to ask about it, but you knew the look that father would have given you and at the age of eleven, that was the most frightening thing you could imagine being on the receiving end of.

You know better than that now.

"I see no reason why young Mr. Lupin shouldn't be able to attend Hogwarts come September," the man is saying, and somewhere deep inside of you, your heart leaps the way it had the first time you had heard those words. "Extra precautions will have to be taken of course…"

You close your eyes and the voice fades, replaced by the roar of crashing waves.

/

The banner above your head is scarlet and gold, and the boy sitting beside you is loud and enthusiastic, and he waves his fork around as he speaks.

"Knew I'd be in Gryffindor. Just knew it. Didn't I tell you? I told you, didn't I?" he asks as he turns to you, his eyes blown wide behind the lenses of his glasses. "Told you on the train- all the Potters have been in Gryffindor. Best house there is."

The boy on the other side of him doesn't look so sure, and it's almost overwhelming to be looking at him- so young and so small and so untroubled. "Dunno," he says. "Still think they sorted me wrong."

"Sirius," you say, and you remember saying this and you remember how even then his name felt like silken honey on your tongue. "Sirius, mate, if you were brave enough to be sorted into Gryffindor, you must be brave enough to be able to stand up to your family."

Beside you, James Potter stands and mimes thrusting a sword into the air and exclaims, "Where dwell the brave of heart!"

/

Beach, stairway, sidewalk, beach, stairway, sidewalk, cologne, tug, cologne, tug, beach, stairway, sidewalk- on and on and on it goes.

/

Here you're fifteen, and you're not quite a boy anymore. These are the things you remember well- that you can recall without really having to try. The sound of the crackling of the common room fire, the tingle of the slight rug burn you had gotten once from the area in front of said fire, what it felt like to be seated on the leather couch, James' laugh and Peter's joke and Sirius sitting next to you and his scent- cologne, cologne, cologne.

These memories are stronger, more vivid, and brighter somehow- not quite so faded and fuzzy around the edges, worn like an old photograph.

Here, you are alone in the common room, boy of fifteen years of age, and you so easily see through your own eyes what you had missed back then.

You are in love, and your palms are sweating, and your heart is racing, and your thoughts are running rampant through your brain like an errant freight train. You had called it a crush, had brushed it off like it meant nothing, hadn't had the ability to realize that you should have savored every moment that you could.

He is there somewhere, because of the tug in your chest tells you so, but this is not something you want to relive.

Not the conversation that had turned into a kiss that had turned into several kisses that had turned into pulling away that had turned into talking that had turned into fighting that had turned into wrestling on the floor- hands in hair, knuckles on cheeks, bloody split lips, bruised eyes, bruised egos.

You remember the denial so vividly here- and how fierce it had been! How silly you were to have looked right at everything you could ever want and then shove it away. Silly, silly boy of fifteen years of age, wise and regretful man of thirty-eight- how strange to be a combination of the two of them.

You close your eyes.

/

You see so many things, things that are significant and things that are not, things that you wish you could change and then memories that make you wish you never had to leave.

Classes, exams, pranks, winter, summer, fall, your parents, the Potters, your grandparents, the Pettigrews, slipping on ice outside the Castle, slipping on an ice cube in someone's kitchen, reading, studying, chocolate, tea, parchment, Christmas, Quidditch, welcome feast, holiday feast, Mrs. Potter's roast, James, Peter, Sirius, transformations, the cycle of the moon, friends, animals, Sirius Sirius Sirius—

—fighting with Sirius and making up with Sirius and falling into bed with Sirius and relying on strength from Sirius and studying with Sirius and laughing and smiling with Sirius—

—Sirius Sirius Sirius.

And he's around somewhere, for the tug in your chest reminds you, and so you carry on.

/

Here, you are older and you are lovers and you're living together in that God-awful flat above one of London's bookstores. It's small and poorly decorated and always smells musky and old, but it's a home.

It's your home.

Here, he is speaking to you but you remember the words and you chose not to listen to them again.

"Born at the end of July… traitor… Dumbledore… the Order… _Harry_-"

"Enough!"

You relive the stinging sensation of your palm smacking the linoleum and you relive that flash of surprise that flickers across his handsome face.

You look at each other, and you now know that you each had been thinking the same thing, for you had had that discussion while you were tangled up in the sheets of a bed just a few years ago.

_You_, is what you had been thinking.

_It's you. _

/

The thirteen years apart seem so much longer here- spread out in a collection of your most hated memories.

You avoid these staircases the best you can.

/

Finally the wait is over, and here is the first time you see what's become of his handsome face, now gaunt and pale and almost frightening.

You embrace, and his hair is greasy and his clothes are foul and he's so thin that you fear you may just snap him in half, but it's him.

There are three frightened students and a rat to tend to, though, and so you separate too soon.

Now you know that you should have done anything you could to make that moment last.

/

These are the memories that are your fondest, for there's not a single one of them that doesn't involve him. Here you're in a cave, there you're in your house, and then you're in his house and it's the summer and you have three months to yourselves before the Weasleys and Granger and Harry and the Order come knocking at your door.

Here, you are allowed to kiss and touch and laugh and play like teenagers, and each moment is as good the second time around as it was the first.

He looks more like the man- the boy- that you once knew and here you fall more and more in love with him every day. You remember that, of course- finding new things to adore and admire. The list was seemingly endless, and each moment you had together was only ticking away to forever.

Here, you relive the summer and then the fall and then the winter and then Christmas- what a glorious one it had been!- and then the new year and then the spring and then—

And then.

You know what lies beyond the next staircase, and your star is leading you along, and your heart shatters the moment you open your eyes to see the Ministry looming before you.

You skip that memory all together.

/

Here, you are in mourning.

You skip those memories too.

/

Here, you are happy, and you are married and there is a smart, witty, wonderful woman on your arm.

You love her when she smiles at you, and you love her on the days that her hair is black, and you wish you could really love her in the way that she deserves to be loved.

You lie next to her and you watch her sleep, and you remember this night- remember how guilty you felt for you had imagined someone else while you were making love not more than an hour before.

You brush her hair away from her eyes and you kiss her forehead, and then you close your eyes.

/

There is another staircase waiting when you open them, and by now you're weary.

You realize what must be waiting for you there, and you remember running and then Harry sending you home.

Guilt, resentment, fear, anger—

You move on.

/

Teddy is two months old and he is smiling at you and you know that in a few seconds he'll grab your thumb and pop it into his mouth.

His hair is electric blue today, but his mother's is dull and mousey brown when she steps into the nursery with tear tracks on her cheeks.

"We have to go," is all she says, and your stomach lurches because hadn't this just happened?

Hadn't this just been hours before the beach?

Would that make the beach—

/

Here you are dueling, and this isn't so much a memory as some sort of flashback.

Dolohov is standing in front of you and he is laughing and your arm is getting tired and then there is green and then there is white and then there is the beach.

/

—Heaven?

/

You open your eyes for the last time and your senses suffer and overwhelming assault. There's a sun in the sky and birds chirping in the distance and the air smells sweetly salty and Sirius is standing in front of you.

"'Bought time you got here," he says, and you're not sure whether you want to weep or laugh.

"You're here," you say. "Of course you're here."

Sirius grins, lopsided and lazy. "This is, as they say, your party."

You step forward on unsteady feet and you clasp a hand onto his shoulder, terrified that he'll vanish like a tendril of smoke. But he doesn't, and he's solid, and you do weep and you do laugh and you hold onto him so tightly that it makes you never want to let go.

The tug in your chest is gone, but there is that scent- his scent. Now it makes sense, and now you understand. You followed the star like you always have- you followed Sirius, the Dog Star, your star, your dog, your mate. He led you, and he is here, and now you're here, and the notion of that makes you start laughing all over again.

"My party," you choke out. "Not quite what I was expecting."

And his face falls then, and he reaches out to touch your cheek, and the look in his eyes tells you that he understands. "We don't choose this," he starts. "Our… Heaven or afterlife or whatever the hell this is supposed to be. I don't think so, anyway. I think it's supposed to be so predetermined thing, and that what you just did is meant to prove it to you."

You open your mouth, desperate to interject, but he cuts you off. "Yes, I know, it happened to me too. Nasty experience that was," he says with an exaggerated shudder. "Had to relive the first time Kreacher cut my hair. That's when I knew I was going to run away some day, you know. Hated having to sit through that."

"Of course you did."

He offers a cheeky smile. "Hell of a lot of stairs that I climbed to get to you."

The stairs- _of course_. The stairs are the trials, the ups and downs of your relationship, every moment you had spent together in life that led to this in death- how you hadn't made the connection before, you're not quite sure.

"'Suppose I'm stuck with you the rest of my life then, eh?"

"That is the general idea, yes. Intertwined fates, destiny, kismet, soul mates- what have you."

"Ah, lucky me," you joke, and you smile broadly when it makes him laugh. You'd nearly forgotten the sound, forgotten how his face would light up and his hair would whip around his face when he tilted his head back.

You watch him, and then you hesitate, because fate and destiny and kismet don't make you feel any less guilty about where you are, or who you're there with. "My wife," you say, and Sirius only shakes his head.

"Predetermined."

You consider it, and you imagine that Tonks is somewhere like this, somewhere where she'd like to spend her eternity with, and you imagine that she has someone to spend it with- another young hell raiser with a talent for trouble, perhaps. The thought of that makes you smile.

"And my son?"

"Will, I assume, have his own predetermined place and person to find when the day comes. What? You think that just because I've been here longer, I know how everything works?"

"Well, what else would you be doing with your time up here?"

Sirius tilts his head, and gives you a look that makes the answer seem like the most obvious thing in the world.

"Waiting for you."


End file.
